Look, Charmaine Valere...

Dear Charmaine,

I could take on this debate on several levels but let me restrict it to the literary. I am disappointed that this was the only response you could come up with relation to my queries about your poll.

First of all, I believe you have liberally embellished the qualifications and numbers of the respondents to your poll, but that is irrelevant to the greater context. Secondly, citing anonymity due to the fear of my virtual wrath is a cop-out, and an extremely weak one at that; you could have easily published some of the comments from all of these highly informed and qualified people without placing their [real] names. I agree that these people have every right to give their opinion on my book[s], but the only opinion that is represented is yours, and it is one that increasingly appears to be highly under-informed.

There are certain basic elements of literary criticism, and they are not generally summed up by the words "good to head-scratching bad." That said, what I have commended you on is your zeal in attempting to establish a critical reputation, thus leaving space for the simian act of puzzlement, the afore-mentioned head scratching. The incapacity or incompetence of the critic however is not a reliable reflection on the literary quality of the text - something I have kept in mind in my decision not to respond to the two published reviews I have seen of Fictions thus far, one of which you wrote.

Contrary to what you have implied, I have never offered any "lengthy, arrogant, incoherent explanations from a writer about his or her hintellectual intent"; this is the sort of thing I've criticised in Wilson Harris, and refuse to indulge in myself, outside of a discussion of technique in a writing class, or when I receive a proper critical challenge. I believe that the text should be the only basis for a critical appreciation of a piece of work, hence my not mentioning a word as to the intellectual intent of my book in my introduction to Fictions.

Here is my challenge to you. Having reviewed the book for CRB, it should be no trouble for you to post a no-holds barred critique of Fictions on your blog, give me that good dose of reality that I'm just begging for. You can even buttress it with the anonymous comments by your legions of qualified and discerning readers. They don't even have to marry me and make a child with me for me to ridicule them online.

This is the thing - I don't treat idiocy and incompetence lightly, and I am going to take pleasure in ripping your review to shreds, particularly regarding your tendency to run with the most obvious clues (inclusive of red herrings) while being blind to the richer meaning of the text.

I am going to save you some embarrassment by pointing out some of the basic errors made in your CRB review, so you can avoid repeating them.

* Only one of the two "journal stories" you referred to in your review is an actual journal story, and it says so in the title, "CCLE: A Personal Journal". The other one, "The Aviary" is a traditional first person narrative, doesn't even pretend to be anything else.

* Heat metaphor in "The Aviary", not the major theme. Only used as an opening and closing technique. Clue to a proper analysis of the story might actually lie somewhere, I don't know, in the title.

* Slave plantation reference in "Cumae", not so much a red herring as it is a red shark, as is the association with Guyana's colonial, slave-era past. The primary allusion is shamelessly and deliberately overdone but you missed it.

* You make the following statement in your review: "And the depiction of Walter Rodney as a talking head who only [my emphasis] gains 'bits and pieces of brain' as Smith's death vision is potentially a great talking point for the collection." Not only is this a trite assessment but misleading when you consider the context of the line, or indeed the line itself, from which the quoted part is taken.

"The bits and pieces of brain, as detail, came a little later."

There are of course several other blunders which together form part of a fairly brief, if meandering, review, but your problem is that you possess little capacity in your assessment of literature overall. Caribbean literature is often an easy critical avenue because much of it is retarded by pseudo-modernist, post-colonial prescriptions, perpetuated by mediocrities much like yourself with "a healthy respect for the Caribbean literary tradition", which by the way really doesn't exist, but you wouldn't know that.

Post-modern concerns and expression within writing coming out of the Caribbean cause you to scratch your head, but you can offer no cogent analysis for what is bad about what you say is bad. While I am adamant about the Caribbean/Guyana being the central subject of what I write, my literary 'tradition' is Borges, Nabokov, Marquez, Wallace, Walcott, Naipaul, Wallace and any other writer who has any sort of demonstrated ability in their craft. Artistic excellence is the only real tradition any writer should be concerned with, whatever society he chooses to focus on.

Taking the purported high ground and saying that the reason why my book has not been reviewed in the local press is because my 'friends in the media' are doing me a favour is disingenuous to put it mildly. There have been no competent book reviews in the local press period because there are no competent critics. If there is any consideration for me in the non-publication of a critical review of my work, it is due to fear of the very thing I am going to do to you pending your taking up my challenge to publish a more 'honest' review than the one in CRB: exposure as an incompetent sham. You can check my track record of eight years ago on the Coolie Tom Puss issue to see why.

Regarding typos in my work: I am currently reading a second edition of An Area of Darkness, produced by an international publisher, and marking the typos.

Fictions, Volume One, in winning the GT&T publication award, received the endorsement of not one but several people who know more than you about good writing...and lots more. Indeed, I declined a heartfelt offer from Ian McDonald to pen an endorsement for the blurb due to my lateness in getting it to print. I also went against the advice of a good friend whose critical opinion I actually respect to submit Fictions, as published, for the Commonwealth Prize for Literature - I decided against it because I couldn't complete the larger collection in time. That said, I did go as far receiving permission from the Regional Prize Committee to submit it, although as a rule they do not accept self-published work from the Caribbean.

You are completely out of your depth on this, and the more you insist on challenging my literary credentials, the more you are going to fail, as I have warned you. I am not some little blogger that you are engaged in some childish back and forth with, when you should be taking the time to educate yourself in the field you seem to have chosen. Privately claiming that I was Stolid Charisma was clearly not enough for you, you had to go embarrass yourself on a completely different level.

Regards,

Ruel